Chapter Text
Figuring out how Talia thinks is an exercise in frustration. No matter how many different ways he looks at it the whole situation doesn't make sense. He is still a teenager, with no money, currently declared dead, no hope of getting a legal source of income and a head full of green rage. But she thinks he is the best option for raising her child, not the kids actual father? The man who has millions of dollars, a full-time butler and…still dresses up as a furry at night and got his last son killed in a cape. Okay maybe she has a point, but surely there has to be someone better than him.
“Talia? What is this?” He looks up confused.
“His name is Damian,” she handed him a folder. “This is everything you need; passports, bank accounts, identification for you and the child. You can keep him safe, from me and his father. You can train him to protect himself without putting him in a cape. The league is no place for a child, if my father found out about him…”
She shuddered, a very rare physical tell of her fear and horror. “It is best that neither my father or his ever know of his existence.”
“But…I'm not a dad. I can't do this.”
“You can. You will be a better father than I could be his mother, you will protect him with your very life. You would give up your plans for revenge and control because it is best for him. That is something I can never do.”
Talia pressed a kiss to the six-month old’s forehead. Then she did something she almost never did, she asked for something.
“Please. You are the only one with the skills to do this. Please protect my son, Jason.”
Jason sighed. This was not what he was planning. He wasn’t ready to be a dad, but she was right he couldn’t do much worse than B or Talia. Foster care was an unthinkable option, even if she vetted someone to raise him, they wouldn't be able to protect him if Ra’s or B ever found out about him.
Jason looked down at the small child, his brow already had a wrinkle like he was working on his bat-brooding face. His little thumb was in his mouth as he suckled it in his sleep. He was kind of peaceful, adorable even.
“Okay, okay I’ll do it.” Jason finally agreed. “Besides, he’s kinda cute.”
Talia slipped away while Jason was distracted watching his new son sleep.
—
Roy was glad he’d taken time away from the vigilante game, raising Lian was just as important as saving the world. She was his whole life; he couldn’t imagine not being there for her.
The Titans knew they could call on him for major apocalypses, after all there had to be a world for Lian to live in. He just didn’t want to risk his life on a daily basis if it meant that she might not have a parent at the end of the day.
That is why he settled in Nowheresville, South Carolina. It was far enough away from any major vigilante city that he should be able to avoid trouble but still big enough a single dad as young as he was wouldn’t draw attention. Roy found a job as a mechanic and got the two of them an apartment.
Pretty soon he’d found that life as a dad was a much harder job than saving the world. Much, much harder.
That was how he ended up accidentally starting a single dad’s support group. A couple of guys from his NA & AA meetings and a few that he ran into at the shop would get together weekly to talk, exchange stories, and advice. It worked as a combination play dates for the kids and support group for the adults, and it was a great source for emergency baby-sitters.
It wasn’t often they had new members; the town was small enough that it seemed like everyone who qualified had already joined, but today there was a new pair in the mix. The guy was objectively beautiful, striking teal eyes, bodybuilder muscles that made Roy drool just a little at the thought of all of that strength, and dark hair with an artful patch of pure white that only added to his beauty.
Roy forgot his own name. He hadn’t been hit by the reminder ‘I am Gay’ so hard in years. Roy was smitten. He was having a hard time paying attention to anything other than the strain of the man's pecs under his shirt. Play it cool Roy, play it cool.
Roy went to sit down in his chair, his chair that was half a foot to the right. He fell straight on his ass.
Whelp, there went any hope of making a good impression. He closed his eyes and groaned. Lian rushed over at the sound.
“Are you okay daddy?”
“I’m just fine princess.” Roy reassured her by picking her up in a hug and plopping a kiss on her forehead. “Didn’t you want to play with Mary while we're here?”
“Yep.” She shrieked in his ear. The four-year-old started to wiggle until Roy put her back down.
There was no recovering from that hell of an introduction to the hot new guy whose name he still didn’t know. There was no way that he would think of going out with a guy as dumb as he was, not like he even knew if hotty was bi or gay or whatever. Or even thinking about himself right now, his kid still looked pretty young, maybe two or so but definitely not as old as Lian, so he was probably really new to the whole single dad thing.
Despite Jason being able to survive when dropped deep in the wilderness and navigate his way back to civilization perfectly with only the sun and the vaguest hint of where he should go, he felt completely lost with Damian.
Fatherhood was a lot different from anything he’d been trained for. He had no idea what to do or how to raise a child. He needed help.
Jason walked into the singles’ dad meeting mentally shaking in his boots. Tyler, his new coworker, had brought him along telling him that it had been a huge help to him when he suddenly got custody of his twin girls.
There were seven men there, he was the youngest at eighteen, he was still the youngest at his supposed age of twenty-one. The next guy was mid-twenties, muscley, he’d clearly had some training in fighting but the old track marks on his arms half covered by tattoos spoke more to probable gang affiliations than anything formal.
Most were early to mid-thirties in varying shades of out of shape, clearly all desk jockeys. Not a single bit of threat from any of them. Jason could take them all out in his sleep if he needed to.
There was one ex-military man who was aware of all the exits, where the children were, and where everyone else was in the room. He was on a low-level scan pattern every few minutes. Clearly, he’d just come back from some serious action, but also it seemed he trusted these guys. Then of course there was Tyler who suggested the whole thing.
The vet and the gang member were the two biggest threats in the room but neither looked like they wanted any trouble. Vet was obviously assessing Jason too, checking to see where he ranked as a threat to his kid. He was clearly confused as to why he clocked Jay as a threat but also accepted that there was no imminent danger.
Jason tried to relax, if he was tense Damian would get tense and that was just a vicious circle of terror. He learned that the first time Damian got sick. Jason jiggled Dami on his hip nervously debating if he wanted to put Dami down to meet some of the others or just hold off on that a little while.
There was a thud and a groan from a couple of feet away that had Jason briefly tensing again. The redhead gang guy missed his chair and fell on the floor. Oh, maybe the track marks weren’t as old as he thought. No, he was tracking everything the adorable little girl checking on him was saying, just clumsy then. Good he didn’t want anyone currently drugged up anywhere near Damian.
He decided he’d sit in the floor with the kids for now to see if Dami actually wanted to play with any of the others. The redhead in the corner made a low squeaking noise as Jason bent over and put Dami on the floor before folding himself into a pretzel to sit next to his son.
Dami sat on the floor next to him and stared at the other kids while he chewed on his fingers. Suddenly a trio of girls popped in front of them.
“Hi. I’m Lian. What’s your name?” Redhead’s kid introduced herself.
“I’m Jason,” Jason patted Dami’s hair. “This is Damian. How about you girls? What are your names?”
“I’m Mary,” purple shirt said.
“Sarah,” The other girl mumbled around her fingers as well. She looked a few months older than Damian himself.
“Can we play with Damian?” Lian asked.
“Habibi, do you want to play with the girls?” Jason asked Damian softly in Arabic.
Damian nodded before he toddled up and after the girls. Jason sat for a minute or so watching the kids before he figured he’d introduce himself to the others.
“I haven’t heard that language since I got back stateside.” The vet held out his hand. “Jeff Collins, Mary over there is mine.”
“Name’s Jason P. Johnson, kiddo is Damian.” Jason shook hands introducing himself to the group. “He deserves to know his mother’s tongue even if he’ll never get to meet her, so we are a multilingual house.”
“I get that, I’m trying so hard to pick up Spanish for my boys. But no matter how hard I try I can't get it to sound right.”
“Need help with that? I'm pretty good with Spanish too.”
Jason started to relax as he got to know the others. Others who, while he highly doubted there were any children of assassins or ex-superheroes in the dad’s group, knew what it was like to struggle and raise a kid by themselves. This might be a really good thing for him and Damian. He left that night with half a dozen new contacts in his phone who he could call for help.
—
Jason decided that today would be a perfect day to take Dami to the park. The kid desperately needed to get some fresh air, or maybe that was him, but either way it was a beautiful summer day and the park was calling their names.
It felt like everyone had thought the same thing today. There were people everywhere: couples walking, kids screaming, skateboarding teens, and power walking grannies galore. He almost turned and left as soon as he saw the crowds, but one look at his son’s happy face put a stop to that idea.
Damian started to climb the little play structure stomping as loud as he could. It was his new favorite pastime. Jason stood off to the side watching him. They didn’t need another repeat of the sword incident. Why the daycare had plastic swords in the two-year-old room he had no idea, but Mrs. Jordan would never forgive Damian for stabbing her little Joey.
Jason had finally started relaxing when there was loud screaming from the other side of the wooden pirate ship. Not seeing Damian, Jason charged the ship and vaulted to the top in two strides desperate to find his son.
Damian was sitting next to a girl, both of them were bawling their little eyes out. There was a boy laughing at them, maybe six or seven, that had shoved the two of them down and was teasing the smaller kids.
Green flooded his vision. He needed to protect his child. No one was going to make his son cry and get away with it. Jason pulled himself over the ship's wall landing lightly behind the two crying children.
Jason forced the green into submission, a six-year-old did not need the full force of the pit leveled at him. No matter how much Jason wanted to make him pay for daring to hurt his kid, he would never even touch a child when the green clouded his mind. He would however frighten the shit out of him.
“What do you think you're doing?” Jason’s voice sounded just like Batman about to throw Riddler in jail for the hundredth time. It was no wonder that the kid pissed himself.
“You leave my kids alone. Got me.” Jason growled after the fleeing kid.
Jason scooped Damian off the deck frantically checking him for injuries. He pressed a kiss to his forehead.
“You're okay, baby.” He bounced a little while he was talking.
“Hey princess, are you okay?” Jason knelt down to check over the little girl who was still crying.
“It hurts.” she whimpered.
“What hurts?” Jason asked. Where were her parents? Surely the kid wasn’t here alone. They must have heard the commotion. Right?
The girl sniffled a little more, pointing at her knee that was scraped raw.
“Oh, that is a two band-aid boo-boo for sure.” Jason tutted at her.
“You want to come with me and we will get that cleaned up?” Jason offered her his hand.
Lian nodded, tears still streaming from her eyes. He thought she looked familiar. Maybe she was in Damian’s daycare? She was a couple of years older than him so they wouldn’t be in the same class but they might have passed her in the halls a few times.
“What is your name sweety?” asked Jason as he helped her down the big pirate ship.
“Lian,” she sniffed an answer.
“Lian Harper? You and your dad go to the playdates on Thursdays?”
“Yep.”
“I’m Jason, me and Damian have gone a few times now.” He took her to the park bench where he left Damian’s diaper bag. He gave Damian his favorite stuffy and plunked him on the sand right in front of the bench.
“Alright princess, let's take a look at your knee.” Jason picked her up and put her on the bench. He pretended to examine the wound. “I’m afraid it's bad, very bad, Miss Harper.”
Jason tutted and shook his head. “This is the worst leg wound I have ever seen.”
“It is!” Lian was so surprised at his weird seriousness that she forgot to cry anymore.
“Awful,” Jay pulled out another one of Damian’s bears and held it over her knee.
“What is that Dr. Bear? Oh no. That is terrible.” Jason gasped in exaggerated horror.
“What?” Lian was captivated by the man’s weird antics now.
“Dr. Bear said we need to amputate, gonna have to take the leg off at the knee.” He said using the teddy bear to tickle her leg. She started giggling and laughing as the bear pretended to saw her leg off.
While he was making her laugh, he pulled out the small first aid kit from the bag. A small bottle of peroxide and some band-aids got placed on the bench.
“You want to see a magic trick?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Okay you got to help. You need to hug Dr. Bear as tight as you can and he’ll make water bubble.”
“Water doesn’t bubble silly.”
“If you hug the bear hard enough it can. It might sting a bit though. You think you can help?”
Lian nodded.
“Alright, hug him tight.” Jason started to pour the peroxide over the raw cuts making her hiss in pain. Once he was sure that all the dirt was out of the cuts, he pulled out the band-aids and covered it with Disney princesses.
“LIAN? LIAN?” They both looked up to see her dad frantically searching the park screaming her name.
“That’s your dad Roy, right munchkin?”
Lian nodded.
“Roy. Over here.” Jason waved to catch his attention.
“Oh my god, why did you run off?” Roy scooped her up and did his own frantic check on her. He caught sight of the fresh band-aids and his face darkened.
“What did you do to my daughter?” He growled at Jason.
“I scared off a bully and then helped bandage her up.” Jason frowned at the worried dad. He knew he wouldn’t be much better if Damian got hurt, but he’d just been trying to help.
“Dr. Bear was gonna cut my leg off but Mr. Jason fixed it with the bubbly water instead. It only hurt a little bit and then he gave me princess’ see I got Bell and Moana. But he forgot to kiss the boo-boo like you do.”
“Oh well, I guess I will just have to do that then.” Roy said and gently pressed a kiss above the band-aids. “There. All done now.”
“Daddy, can we get ice cream?” Lian employed the big old puppy dog eyes of doom and it took Roy all of ten seconds to cave to her request.
“Ice cweam.” Damian perked up from his spot on the ground. “Ice cweam, baba.”
“Sorry about earlier.” Roy rubbed the back of his neck. “Umm, would you two like to join us for some ice cream?”
“From the sound of it there is no way I can say no.” Jason grinned over at the other dad.
“Yay, ice cweam,” Damian started to bounce and clap excitedly.
—
Roy was frantic, he looked away for two seconds and Lian disappeared. Where was she?
“Lian, Lian. Where are you?”
He headed to the pirate ship; it was her favorite thing in the park. He'd told her once that her aunty Kori had her own ship they traveled in sometimes and now she thought they were space pirates. God, he hoped she had just run ahead. His heart was in his throat, he hadn’t felt this anxious in the last three apocalypses he’d fought in.
“LIAN? LIAN?”
“Roy. Over here.” Hot dude from the dad group was waving to catch his attention. Lian was sitting on the bench next to him. Oh, thank god.
“Oh my god, why did you run off?” Roy scooped her up and did his own frantic check on her. He caught sight of the fresh band-aids and his face darkened. If hot dude did anything to his daughter, he was going to feel the wrath of Arsenal. He had been tinkering with some explosive arrows that still needed field testing.
“What did you do to my daughter?” He growled at him.
“I scared off a bully and then helped bandage her up.” The other man frowned defensively.
Oh. That was really nice, actually.
“Dr. Bear was gonna cut my leg off but Mr. Jason fixed it with the bubbly water instead…”
Lian was actually in a pretty good mood, which was really surprising. Usually, it took her hours to calm down after she was injured or someone picked on her.
Jason must be a really good dad. Roy should probably apologize for growling at him.
“...I got Bell and Moana. But he forgot to kiss the boo-boo like you do.”
“Oh well, I guess I will just have to do that then.” Roy said.
He loved his little girl. She was so adorable, so sweet and innocent still. She brought a joy to his life he’d never thought he’d find. He gently pressed a kiss above the band-aid
“There. All done now.”
“Daddy, can we get ice cream?” Ahh, there was his manipulative little monster plotting for treats.
“Ice cweam.” Jason’s little boy started begging too. “Ice cweam, baba.
“Sorry, about earlier.” Roy rubbed the back of his neck. Well at least he could treat them to ice cream as a thank you for helping out with Lian.
“Umm, would you two like to join us for some ice cream?”
“From the sound of it there is no way I can say no.”
Jason’s smile lit up his whole face. Suddenly all he could think about was how could he get that man to smile like that all the time. While his grumpy face was adorable that smile brought back all the little butterfly feelings he had when he first saw him. Yep, Roy had it bad.
“Yay, ice cweam,” Damian started to bounce and clap excitedly.
“What brings you out to middle-of-nowhere, SC?” He asked after taking a bite of his own ice cream.
“Just trying to get away from everything,” Jason answered. “I'm surprised almost everyone else asks me about his mother first thing.”
“Well as a founding member of the single dad's club I figured if you were in the club then she wasn't really in the picture, or you might not want to talk about it.” Roy knew all about not wanting to talk about the baby momma. There was just nothing like trying to bring up the ‘hey my ex is a world class assassin’ to ruin a conversation.
“She’s a touchy subject, basically she walked out and I needed to leave all the memories behind so we moved here.” The young dad shrugged, looking over at the kids.
The two toddlers were having their own ‘conversation’ where Lian talked about whatever came to mind and Damian played with his ice cream.
“Yeah, pretty much the same for me. Except she’ll drop in unexpectedly and want a day with the munchkin now and again.”
It was nice talking to another adult, another parent. It didn't hurt that he was really pretty to look at. Maybe he could figure out if he's single, and into guys.
“So… any contenders for the title of stepmom or maybe even stepdad?”
Roy took another bite of ice cream trying to hide how important this question really was.
“No,” Jason’s cheeks tinted pink, an adorable blush spreading across them.
“Good to know.” Roy grinned back, his eyes smoldering with intent.